1.0 Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an index to reference a list of data, and more particularly to an environmentally responsive oscillating circular affinity (EROCA) index.
2.0 Description of the Related Art
Many software applications use lists to sequentially store items of data. When an item of data in the list is referenced, the list is typically searched sequentially starting at the top of the list. When the size of the list becomes large, the amount of time to access a desired item can become large if that item is near the end of the list. Therefore a search can take a long time, and provide a slow response to a user.
To reduce the access time, an index to the most frequently referenced items in the list could be provided. However, maintaining a rigid most-frequently-referenced index may not be advantageous in those cases when the more recently referenced items are most likely to be referenced again. Using the most-frequently-referenced indexing technique, those items which are referenced, that is, accessed, more recently but less often may not remain in the index. For example, if a subset of items were referenced very frequently for a short period of time that subset of items would be stored in the index; however, after that period of time had passed and that subset of items is no longer referenced, that subset of items would dominate the index and provide no benefit.
One solution would be to increase the size of the index to increase the likelihood of storing the most recently referenced items. However, this solution may result in a very long index and possibly increase, rather the decrease, the average access time.
Therefore there is a need for an improved indexing technique to allow most-recently referenced items in a sequential list to be accessed efficiently.